CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“About the celery?” he asked with a wicked glint in his eye.
“No. Are you okay to skip lunch?” Jeanine had all of this well under control now. I wasn’t going to be needed until after everyone had finished eating, and they’d only begun their first course. We had some time.
“I’m not very hungry,” I added.
I was. But not for food. It was hard to stand here and talk to him like everything was normal when all I could think about was his body pressing into mine, pinning me in place, his mouth ravaging mine, and how delicious all of it had felt.
But we’d had the actions upstairs and now it was time for the words.
“I’m fine with skipping lunch. Let’s talk.”
I led him by the hand to the base of the stairs and sat down. I’d be nearby in case anyone needed me, but not in some closed-door room where I knew he could easily distract me. He stretched out next to me and I tried organizing my thoughts, figuring out the best way to have this conversation with him.
Max beat me to the punch. “How did your date with your boss go?”
“It was not a date,” I said, and then had to correct myself. “It was intended to be a date, but I left three minutes after I arrived.”
He seemed to consider this information carefully and then announced, “I’m glad. Vella told me he was a bad guy.”
“When did you talk to Vella?” I glanced over at her and she immediately swung her gaze away, staring at the ceiling and acting innocent, like she hadn’t prepped Max and then sent him over.
She had always told me that she wasn’t the type to interfere and yet here we were.
“I talked to Vella earlier, before I went upstairs and found you.”
Memories of him finding me were making my knees sweat, so I forced myself to pay attention to the conversation we were trying to have. “Adrian’s not a bad guy. He’s clueless and helpless, but not bad.”
Max had no response to that and just absorbed the information.
I felt compelled to fill in the silence. “And I didn’t stay because I don’t have feelings for Adrian.”
His eyebrows flew up in surprise. “I thought you were in love with him.”
“I was never in love with him. I had a crush on him. A crush that very quickly fell apart when I examined it.” Especially when I compared it against the way that I was in love with Max. “It was just all smoke and shadows. Nothing substantial.”
“I thought you wanted to be with him,” he said, like he couldn’t understand what was happening.
“I don’t.” I paused and then added, “Is that why you didn’t talk to me after you overheard us?”
He hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “I guess I figured that if you were so willing to go out with him, you weren’t interested in dating anyone else.”
Did he mean himself? It looked like he was going to join me in beating around this particular bush. “I’m not the only one who went out on a date with someone else.”
“Who?”
“Arabella.”
“That was not a date,” he said. “I told you, she had some things she wanted to return to me. Nothing happened.”
“It seemed to me like a convenient excuse to see your extremely gorgeous ex-girlfriend that you dated for forever and I ...” My voice trailed off at the expression on his face. “What?”
“You’re jealous.” He said this like it delighted him.
“What? No.” This wasn’t about my feelings of insecurity when it came to his ex. And he didn’t get to be happy about my jealousy when he had felt the same way, even if he hadn’t said so yet. “You can’t go radio silent because I went out with someone when you did the exact same thing.”
“It wasn’t the same, though. I don’t have feelings for Arabella.”
“And I just told you that I don’t have feelings for Adrian!”
“Then why did you go?” he asked.
“Honestly?” Here it was. Time to be direct. I willed my heart to stop pounding so hard against my rib cage, but it didn’t listen. “I think I wanted you to stop me.”
“I would never tell you who you should spend time with.”
“Neither would I. I wanted to, though.”
“Same.” His admission thrilled me. “But I don’t want you to go out with him or anyone else. And if I’d known that me seeing Arabella would upset you, I wouldn’t have gone.”
That was like a confession, right? He didn’t want me to date anybody else? And he wouldn’t have spent time with his perfect, evil, stupid ex if he’d known I didn’t like it? “It wasn’t fair for me to test you like that. It’s something my dad used to do and I hated it.”
“What do you mean?”
“When things started going south in my parents’ relationship, he would say things like, ‘If you just lose twenty pounds, we’d be happy again.’ Or ‘if you kept the house immaculate and wore makeup every day for me, things would get better.’ She was never good enough and he was constantly moving the goalposts. I don’t want to do that, so I’m sorry that I did. I should have told you how I was really feeling.”
As if he sensed that I needed the support, he reached out and took me by the hand. “And how are you feeling?”
But there was another explanation that I needed first. “Why are there so many women texting you on your phone?” At his look of surprise, I added, “You date around a lot, right?”
“I already told you that I’m not dating anyone.”
“I thought you meant not dating anyone seriously, but like casually.”
He glanced down at our joined hands. “Not casually, not seriously. And how do you know who is on my phone?”
I felt my face flame up in response. “I may have inadvertently looked at your phone, which I shouldn’t have done and I’m sorry that I did, but in my defense, you should have a password on it.”
“I should.” He nodded with a mischievous smile, like he knew something I didn’t. “The women texting me are people I work with. Most of my colleagues are female.”
Oh.
Oh .
I’d held on to the belief for so long that he was a womanizing playboy that I didn’t know what to do with this new information other than to explain where I was coming from. “This is more dysfunctional dad stuff for me. My dad used to cheat on my mom a lot and so I distrust men that I think are like him.”
Max gave me a small smile. “My dad was the same way, unfortunately. I’ve never been unfaithful to anyone I’ve been with, and I never would be.”
I believed him.
“But,” he added, “that wasn’t what I asked you. How are you feeling?”
I could feel a burning sensation at the back of my throat. Like I was trying to hold back tears. Max was so beautiful and so perfect that at some point he was going to realize he was too good for me. I was sure this was more residual stuff from my terrible father, but I couldn’t help my insecurity. Even if Max was being so wonderful. “I’m scared that you’re going to realize that you should be with your own kind. Like a racing stallion and a donkey would never date.”
“Huh. I’ve never been called a donkey before.”
My eyes were still watery, but that made me smile. “Obviously I meant it the other way around. If I tell you what I’m feeling, you’ll quickly realize that you’re too good for me and—”
He reached up to turn my face toward him, interrupting me. “Everly? You’re the one who is too good for me.”
“What?” I whispered, in total disbelief. Had he never seen himself in a mirror? Never read his own diary? He was an amazing person in an even prettier package.
“You always look for the best in others,” he said. “Why can’t you see it in yourself? Because I can. You’re smart, funny, kind, generous, thoughtful, and the most scarily organized person I’ve ever met.”
I laughed, but I could see the sincerity in his eyes next to the teasing.
He gently ran his fingers along the side of my face and then reached up to move a lock of my hair that had fallen over my shoulder back into place. “Why don’t you believe that you deserve good things?” he asked.
It was like he’d seen straight into my soul and uncovered something I hid from everyone else. Maybe even from myself.
That on-the-edge-of-tears feeling was back, making my throat tight. “Probably because they’ve been in short supply my entire life.”
He nodded. “You expect things to end badly. I understand that because I’m in exactly the same boat. But I have hope that someday it won’t end that way.”
“I think that’s why I try to look at people and the world as being half-full—because deep down I’m convinced that it will always be half-empty.”
“And I probably played into that fear when I didn’t call or text you this week.” His voice was regretful.
Heart racing in my chest, I pushed myself to be braver. “You did. But to be fair to you, I had told you that I wanted us to be just friends.”
His expression turned neutral. “And now? Is that still what you want? Because I want you to choose what you want.”
I gulped hard. “What if ... what if one of the things I choose is you? If you’re interested.”
His smile could have powered the entire New York City skyline. “If I’m interested? What do you think I’ve been doing this entire time?”
“Being my friend?”
He brought my hand up to his mouth to press a gentle kiss against it. “Everly, I love being your friend. And ...”
Max left the rest of that sentence unspoken, hanging in the air between us. Why didn’t he finish it? Was he scared? Worried? Not quite where I was?
It seemed like he was leaving it to me to spell things out, so I did. “I want to take the next step with you. I mean, if you want that, too.”
“The next step?” He grinned. “I already hurled myself down the entire flight of stairs. I’m more than ready for the next step.”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Then why are you torturing me? If you wanted to be more than friends, why didn’t you just say something? I only said it because I was worried you would friend-zone me and I didn’t want to be humiliated. Especially if you were the womanizing player that I had imagined you to be.”
“Maybe I should have said something before. But you said you didn’t have much experience and I wanted to take things slow.”
“By taking things this slow, you made me think you didn’t like me.”
He kissed my hand again. “I was trying not to scare or overwhelm you.”
So he had been treating me like a skittish horse, too.
Vella was right and we were both stupid.
“And now that we’ve both admitted that we like each other,” he said, “what does it look like moving forward?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you scared?”
“More excited than scared,” I confessed, and he grinned at me again.
“I can work with that.”
“I’m guessing we probably have more to talk about,” I said. “Someplace that isn’t your cousin’s in-laws’ home. Maybe you can come over to my place after the shower ends and we can have dinner together and figure things out.”
His eyes were intense and hungry. “Yes, there’s more that needs to be said. But after we finish talking, I’m going to kiss you until you forget what words are.”
My heart fluttered in anticipation. I’d been kissed by him twice now, so I knew it wouldn’t take me very long for him to get me to that point. “We should get back to the shower.” My voice was breathy and weird but he seemed to like it. “I have to go find out who won the pacifier contest.”
“I did.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I have all fifty pacifiers.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “What made you decide to dominate the game?”
With a wicked grin he said, “I heard there was a prize involved and I already know what I want.”
Then he brought my hand up to his lips again, but instead of a single kiss like he’d already given me, he began to kiss each knuckle. Each press of his warm lips to my skin made me feel like he was marking me his. He turned my hand over and kissed the inside of my wrist, smiling against the way my pulse hammered beneath his mouth.
Each kiss was like a promise of what was to come, and I wished we weren’t in a room full of so many other people.
But soon ... soon I would have him all to myself.